


Tell Me About The Stars

by CyberDalek96



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25118923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyberDalek96/pseuds/CyberDalek96
Summary: Mark and Derek stargaze. Rated T to be safe.
Relationships: Derek Shepherd/Mark Sloan
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	Tell Me About The Stars

**Author's Note:**

> *I do not own Grey’s Anatomy or its characters.  
> *All mistakes are mine.  
> *Comments, constructive criticism, and kudos welcome.

Mark quietly climbed out of his bedroom window onto the roof and sat down, pulling his knees to his chest. The warm summer night air enveloped him. He craned his neck to glance up at the sky. It was a clear night. The glow of the stars provided the only light, save for the dim ray from the lamp near his bed.

He took a deep breath and laid back. Peace flooded his body. Lying beneath the vast blanket of space, his mind shifted from lonely to simply alone. He didn’t mind being alone; he was alone most of the time when he was home, and most of the time he enjoyed that. What 16-year-old boy wouldn't? His parents were always off on business trips or international vacations with friends. But the emptiness of the big house—even on the days the maids and butlers were there—and the fact that he only had a few genuine friendships sometimes made him feel lonely, and the loneliness was not pleasant.

The night sky had a strange way of taking that loneliness away. The expanse of darkness pricked with light went on for a distance he couldn’t comprehend. It surrounded the entire Earth. Every person on the planet shared the same sky. Somewhere out there, someone else was looking at those same stars. This knowledge gave Mark a sense of connection. He was alone, but he wasn’t lonely in this moment.

A thudding sound coming from his bedroom brought him out of his thoughts. Derek was clumsily clambering out of his window.

“You okay?” Derek asked, settling next to him.

“Did I wake you?”

“No, I had to piss.”

“You might not have had to do that if you hadn’t drank five cans of Mountain Dew,” he quipped.

“Shut up.” Derek laughed and looked up at the sky. “What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

Derek rolled over and propped himself up on his elbow. “Mark.”

“Just… the difference between loneliness and alone. How big the world is. How the sky sort of connects us all. That sort of stuff.”

“Hmmm. Deep stuff.” Derek nodded ponderingly. Mark met his eyes and forced a small smile. “You’re not okay, Mark.”

Mark turned away. Sometimes, he hated the way Derek always knew when something was on his mind or when he was feeling down. “Just drop it.”

“You—“

Mark rose to his feet and glared at him. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Derek sat up. “You don’t have to talk. We can just sit here. But you need to know you’ll always have me. And my family. No matter what. I mean it.”

Even though he didn’t want to, Mark grinned.

“There’s the smile my mother loves. Come here.” He tugged on Mark's hand, silently demanding he sit again. When he obeyed, Derek hesitantly pulled him into a side hug.

Though physical contact was fairly rare in their friendship, he didn’t protest. Instead, he squeezed Derek’s hand and placed his head on his shoulder. He was surprised by how natural and right it felt. “Tell me about the stars?” he requested.

Derek repositioned his arm so it was around Mark’s torso and intertwined their fingers. “So we’re facing north, right? Well, over there,” Derek pointed out in front of them. “is a constellation called Lyra. It kind of looks like a kite, but it's a lyre. Which is an instrument similar to the harp.” He paused, pulled Mark closer, and rested his chin on his head. "Lyra is associated with Orpheus, a Greek musician. Hermes is said to have invented the lyre and given it to Apollo, his half-brother. Apollo gave it to Orpheus, and..."

Mark listened intently as Derek continued to explain the lyre-shaped constellation and the mythology accompanying it. He wasn't entirely comprehending what he was hearing; it was a lot of new-to-him information coming quickly. However, he enjoyed listening to the way Derek calmly yet ardently shared his knowledge.

Derek shifted and brought Mark's focus back to the actual words he was saying. “And that star right there? That really bright one? That’s Vega, the brightest star in Lyra and the fifth brightest star in the sky. Not counting the sun, of course. If you look a bit to the west, that's Hercules. It's named after Hercules, who was basically the Roman version of the Greek Heracles. It’s the fifth largest constellation. These constellations are only visible to us in the summer, and they were both catalogued by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the second century. And a little farther out, that's--"

"Derek?" He cut him off and removed his head from his shoulder. He noted the way Derek's eyes shone nearly as brightly as the stars about which he enthused.

"Huh?"

Mark reached his free hand up and stroked Derek's cheek, nervously chewing on the inside of his bottom lip as he did so. He could see the questions in his eyes. _What are we doing? Are you sure? How will things change?_ Mark didn’t know the answer to the last question, but he hoped the answer was “for the better”. He studied Derek's eyes further, the intimacy of the moment making it hard to breathe. Along with the questions, there was something Mark had been hoping to see: a shimmer of longing, faint but there. He leaned in and stopped just before he reached Derek’s lips. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah,” Derek choked out.

Mark closed the distance between them. Their lips--moist and warm--met first in a chaste brush. He could feel Derek's smile, and when Derek pressed his lips against his more firmly, Mark smiled, too. The kiss was unhurried, as if they had all the time in the world. What they lacked in speed they made up for in passion. Derek let out a cry as Mark nipped at his top lip and slipped his tongue in his mouth. The kiss deepened, and Mark moaned when he felt Derek’s hand wander beneath his t-shirt.

They broke the kiss only when they were both starved of oxygen. Gazing into each other’s eyes, mouths hanging open, chests heaving, they knew there was no going back.

“Have you…ever…done that…with-with a guy?” Derek questioned tentatively.

“No.”

“Me neither.”

“But I liked it.”

The smirk on Mark’s face was almost enough to make Derek kiss him again. “Me too.”

Mark lunged forward and grazed Derek’s ear with his teeth playfully; Derek giggled. They lay back against the roof, Mark’s head on Derek’s chest. “Tell me more about the stars?” he pleaded after a few moments of comfortable silence.

“Okay.” Derek began to ramble on about Hercules and Draco and Cassiopeia and other constellations Mark had never heard of.

Mark sighed happily, thankful for his best friend and this moment. Here with Derek, beneath the stars, he wasn't alone nor was he lonely. He was--for the first time in a long time--content and fully at peace.


End file.
